


Hysteria, 1984 Style -- Or, Duran Duran Makes It All the Way to the Boondocks of Florida

by yourlibrarian



Series: Concert Reviews [2]
Category: Duran Duran
Genre: 1980s, Concerts, Gen, Nonfiction, Reviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23107279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Review of the concerts in Jacksonville and Lakeland Florida on March 25 and 26, 1984
Series: Concert Reviews [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668118
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Hysteria, 1984 Style -- Or, Duran Duran Makes It All the Way to the Boondocks of Florida

The world is full of crazy coincidences. After forking out ticket dealer prices to see them at their opening L.A. show, I found out Duran Duran were playing three dates in Florida during the week of my spring break. Amazing. ( While they were playing their much awaited Madison Square Garden date, my neighbors in Florida happened to be on vacation in New York and stayed in the same hotel as the band. They found the commotion memorable.)

My friend, S was anxiously awaiting the tour herself and planned to hit both the Jacksonville and Lakeland dates. Getting tickets at the easy price of $12.50 and $13.50 could make a Los Angelino cry. Lest you think, however, that you have to travel East for cheap tickets, I'm sure the easy availability of base price tickets was due to the insane decision to sell them General Admission. Whose bright idea this was, I would like to someday find out. I thought it surprising that any promoter or venue owner would agree, considering the likely possibility of some youngster dying in the rush for a choice spot. Apparently, the group was lucky every time or else Duran Duran fans are less crazed than fans of the Who. (From my observations, this was hard to believe).

Our Jacksonville expedition began with a phone call prior to my emergence from bed. It was S, alerting me to her departure status -- late, as usual. I prepared myself for what was to be a three hour drive, and when she turned up at 11:30 we took to the highway.

My parents' car, which was generously loaned to me for use on my visits home, did not contain a radio. With my portable radio still at school, we had to take S's 2 block-range boom box for some musical relief. Subsequently we had to stop twice for batteries since the fiendish thing ate some eight at a time and the first 7-11 didn't have enough of the right size. Moreover, the recorder had no back to the battery case so duct tape held them in -- providing nothing more serious than a sneeze shook the machine. It's amazing what you will get used to when you have no choice.

During the drive I played her a copy of their live Madison Square Garden show that had been put out by Westwood One. This live broadcast meant you heard deafening roars, and sometimes the music itself. In its pure form, the band's live drawbacks are painfully clear. While musically competent and carefully planned, the central problem is le Bon's voice. What he can't do vocally he makes up for with energy. Quality control, though, remains a difficult task. The keyboards are way out of tune on "The Reflex" and Simon screeches and yelps all through the show. (To give him his due, he did have a mild bout of laryngitis that night.) The set is a bit too pat. There are no surprises. You've heard one show, you've heard the whole tour.

We realize we may have passed our destination when the road signs start giving us mileage to Savannah, Georgia. We turn around and head back, asking directions to the Gator Bowl the whole way. We arrive around 3:00 and there are already people waiting. S, who has forgotten to buy a needed survival item, is also hungry. So we wander about until we find an Albertsons that can provide both a hoagie and some earplugs.

Everyone is still congregated at the front door when we return. A gaggle of girls runs about the building screaming, for some unknown reason. After another half hour the PA system announces the existence of two side entrances which will also be used at this circular building. S and I wander about it leisurely and have a good chuckle over the tour buses in the back. One is titled "Calypso" and the other reads "No One U Know".

We take up a post and are wind whipped for two hours. At 5:30 everyone crowds to the doors, which makes for a gritty half hour for those pressed against the glass. S and I entertain ourselves with speculation on the chances of a girl who claims a roadie will get her in backstage. We suspect she'll get as far as the roadie, but she certainly considers herself important.

At 6:00 the doors are opened and S rushes for the front. There are no seats, however, so she returns to join me at two side seats in their own row at the left side of the stage. She goes off to get drinks so I can pop some Exedrin for my growing headache, and I survey the building. The Forum seated approximately 18,000. Jacksonville seats between 7 to 8,000. The setting is very different and the crowd is split between teenagers and guys in their early twenties.

The famous Beethoven's famous ninth symphony is playing on the PA system and S and I enjoy a few "Help!" jokes. She has purchased a $22 sleeveless t-shirt. It is announced that at an 11:00 skating party some backstage passes were handed out. I'm sure they would have been scalped in L.A. A Cure tape is playing repeatedly.

As the first people start fainting in front of the stage, a Radio 105 DJ keeps trying to push the crowd back from the stage to no effect. He announces that two sisters named Avery were responsible for getting together the petition that brought the group to Jacksonville. This may explain why they're playing such a small venue on a sell-out tour.

At 7:30, the opening act, Night, comes on. They played some six or seven numbers that were really quite good. They are apparently locally popular because the crowd is receptive.

At 8:05 they leave the stage and some of the same tapes I heard in L.A. start playing, the Cure tape being mercifully absent. We spot some people in Canadian tour shirts. A three hour drive seems mild by comparison.

As 8:45 approaches and the band appears, we have a little trouble with some fans crowding in front of our seats at the rail. After a few pointed words our view is returned to us.

The set runs on as usual except that during the show the band stops playing and the lights go up, with Simon announcing that they're leaving if the crowd  
doesn't step back. Suitably threatened, they do so and the show resumes. I was right about the lighting. Imaginative and coordinated to the show's lyrics, it does not just match the music, but anticipates it -- setting a mood that the music carries the viewer through. During "Save a Prayer", a sun rises with the chorus and blue lights wave back and forth over the crowd during the end refrain. In "Cracks in the Pavement", scattered potholes of light on the stage and a shadow relief against the wall echo le Bon's lyrics.

Unfortunately, something was wrong this evening. Perhaps, as S suggested, the band was tired. Perhaps this last minute booking replaced a planned day off. Perhaps Duran Duran was no longer used to smaller, more intimate shows. Perhaps they hated Jacksonville. Whatever the reason, the band was not into it that night. Until "Save a Prayer" Simon didn't even crack a smile. Afterwards, however, the pace picked up.

Roger got more camera work this evening and Nick and John had gotten haircuts in the past month, Nick's looking very recent. There was some interplay at the end as John hopped over Simon and Andy, and then Simon picked Andy up and dragged him across the stage. At some point between songs, someone in the front called something out to John Taylor, who listened and then shook his head, smiled and shrugged. This was not the Forum.

By 10:45 the show was over and I regretted its inconsistent audience rapport. But after some wrong turns and a stop for gas, S and I are on our way back to Orlando. I shave a whole hour off our driving time as the roads are empty (except for mail trucks). We scrap the idea of going straight out to Lakeland and spend the night at my house instead.

Lakeland is only an hour from Orlando and we find the Civic Center with little trouble, getting there before 11:00. Again we check out the line (some 25-30 people already there) and go off to find something to eat.

Refortified, we camp out by one of the two parallel entrance doors. S helps me pass the time by making me read all the letters she wrote me but never sent during my last quarter at school. Since she once had a 100 page letter (that reached this length due to her procrastination) this pile is mild by comparison. The number of people in line since we went to lunch has doubled. The weather hovered between cloudy and sunny and was obviously in an indecisive mood.

The afternoon is tiring. We move twice and then at 3:00 are forced to return our tape player and camp comforts to the car because the line has become standing room only. It is an uncomfortable two hours. There are rumors of a helicopter landing as the sound check begins. Shrieks wave through the lines and I pick out the strains of "Thriller".

It seems a rule that one must meet one jerk at every concert. It could be a fellow fan, but in this case it is an overweight, piggish security guard so mean spirited as to be pathetic. I suspect him to be Bull Connor's nephew. He roams down the line forcing homemade signs to be thrown away, and threatens to bar admission to those who don't comply. This threat is the only thing that keeps S from puking in his shoes. I keep wishing there was someone I could complain to about his behavior but there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge anywhere. The guard grows restless as people cower and he tears one sign to shreds before its owner's face, adding "I enjoyed that" as he confettis the remnants into the trash. Whatever my gripes with the band's merchandise prices and tour organization, I am sure they would never stand for this behavior going on.

The feeling of oppression deepens when police and police dogs arrive, searching the crowd for drugs. God only knows who last played the Civic Center, but the mood is a decade too late and this is the wrong crowd entirely. The median age is 13 or 14, and more likely to be popping Bubble Yum than pills. Neither S nor I miss the irony when a girl ahead of us hides the "freedom flag" waved in the band's "New Moon on Monday" video under her jacket. It is a beautiful replica, obviously made with much time and care. But as the security guard passes again she turns away, fearing it may be confiscated and destroyed.

Tour photographer Denis O'Regan raises shrieks as he takes pictures, climbing onto the entrance overhang at one point. The security guard offers him no assistance, and obviously despises the group and the adulation they engender. He repeats to whoever will listen that the band has the audience's money and couldn't care less what happens to them after that.

Real screams erupt in a case of suppressed hysteria when a Simon look-alike arrives at the front of our line to talk to some friends. He is attractive but I happen to think he looks more like S's brother. Girls rush up to him, take photos and ask for autographs. Some in line call him Simon until rumors of his real name spread. The whole thing is astounding.

At 5:00 my cousin, R and some friends of S's arrive. We sneak R into line, promising to save seats for the others. A girl with a camera sneaks into the line ahead of us and R brashly sticks her head into the circle to listen in to their conversation. She returns to report that the girl tried using a school press pass to get backstage but was stopped after the second checkpoint.

When the doors open at 6:10 they are letting in only small groups at a time so as not to overwhelm the ticket takers. We hold hands as the pushing and shoving begins and, by bending heads, barely make it into the first group. S and I head out for the front, sending R to secure seats at the side. We end up in what might have been the 4th row -- given the absence of actual seats -- but fifteen minutes of pressure packed elbowings, the heat and smell of the densely packed bodies, and the surreptitious rudeness of those worming their way to the front are enough for me. Since the 5'2" S could neither see nor breathe in the crowd we join R. We are now two seats short but the view of the stage is excellent and we plan to stand.

We are nearly forced to pop our Exedrin (preventative this time) dry because the concession lines are so daunting. We spend the time scanning the crowd and picking out acquaintances. Outside the center I met a girl from St. Petersburg I'd met a few years ago. She and 10 friends had camped out in line since the night before. They had been around so long the security people used them to help control the crowd.

At 8:00 the opening act, whose name I missed, take the stage. They weren't bad looking and one of S's friends (they were both gay) took a great liking to the keyboardist.

At 9:00 the main event appeared, promptly for once, and they were great. Whatever energy had been missing the night before was in full evidence in Lakeland, and the audience responded enthusiastically. The expected numbers rolled out, the video and lighting work blended smoothly, and our group never stopped dancing, singing and goofing around. The screaming was either tolerable, or my earplugs had finally started to do the trick.

"New Religion" was mystical. "The Chauffeur" was haunting. "Save a Prayer" was a mass sing along. "Planet Earth" rocked the house, every body moving. "Careless Memories" was driving. "Rio" was fun and "Girls on Film" the ultimate closer. The best number was probably "Seventh Stranger" as le Bon's rendition of the lonely man at the microphone was played to perfection.

This evening Rhodes didn't crack a smile during "New Religion" but gave the camera such an intense stare as the video flicked out you could almost hear the swooning. Roger Taylor threw out his drumsticks at the end of "Careless Memories" and seemed in a great mood as he and John Taylor slapped each other while heading offstage. Le Bon and Andy Taylor toasted the audience during the sax break on "Rio" and Andy returned with cancer-causing objects stuck in his lip, smoking all through "Girls on Film". The closer was a free for all as John Taylor stole Simon's microphone and le Bon retaliated by stealing Taylor's bass and improvising some "Batman" lines on it. John attempted to get it back, gave up and then folded his arms and shook his head, wincing, at the audience. Later he not only hopped over a prostrate le Bon and Andy Taylor but Simon got up and picked Andy up, walking him across the stage upside down as Taylor continued playing.

Many people ran out at the show's end to catch the band leaving by helicopter. We returned home at a leisurely pace, stopping at a 7-11 (I think it's Florida law that one must be built every 3 blocks) which looked like a concert hang-out. From the comments I overheard, the vote was unanimous. I was third time lucky. March 26 was pure magic.


End file.
